


Ace Of Hearts

by KrysKrossZee



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexuality, Asexuality Spectrum, Gen, Internalized Acephobia, POV Female Character, POV Pansy Parkinson, POV Third Person, Secret Organizations, Sexuality Crisis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:53:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26541721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KrysKrossZee/pseuds/KrysKrossZee
Summary: Pansy stumbles upon a secret organisation that just might hold the answers about herself that she didn't even know that she was looking for.
Relationships: Daphne Greengrass & Pansy Parkinson, No Romantic Relationship(s)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 9
Collections: Harry Potter Ace Fest 2020





	Ace Of Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the admins for hosting this and I apologise for it being a couple of days late. It has been a Week™.
> 
> For this fix I had the prompt: Luna starts a new club at Hogwarts called "The Ace of Hearts" club and rumors start to fly about what they actually do in the club. Pansy(or someone) goes undercover and tries to take them down from the inside, but then realizes something about herself.
> 
> I love Pansy so much and exploring her in this way really opened my eyes - and I wish there was a club like this when I was at school!

"What is the name of Merlin's baggy trousers is this?" Pansy asked as she all but flung the card that she had found across the common room at Theo who was sitting with his nose in a book. She was mildly surprised that the card even made it to him, let alone that he managed to catch it mid-flight.

"A playing card," Theo said matter-of-factly as he looked the card over. "The ace of hearts, to be exact.

"I know what it is." Pansy rolled her eyes as she dropped down onto the sofa across from him. "I meant why is that the seventh one I've found around the castle this week?"

"Why would I know?" Theo asked as he turned his attention back to his book, clearly done with the conversation that Pansy needed to press on with.

These cards had been bugging her with the way that they just kept on popping up for far too long. She was fully aware it didn't take much for her to get annoyed but these cards seemed to be extra good at it. She let out a sigh before she reached across to take the card back from Theo for further inspection. It did just look like an ordinary playing card, but there was just that voice at the back of Pansy's mind that told her that there was something more to it.

"Can you go somewhere else?" Theo asked without looking up from his book.

"Pardon?" Pansy's jaw tightened. She didn't really have many friends, but she had always considered Theo to be someone that she could at least call an acquaintance.

"Your overthinking is getting on my nerves," Theo told her, finally closing his book as he tilted his head up to meet her gaze. "Why must you fixate on the little things like this?"

"I feel like I'm being stalked, Nott. Do you know what that's like? It's driving me mad!" Pansy practically growled as she pulled her knees up to her chest, hugging them tightly. She wanted to force herself to chill out but she didn't know she was meant to do that, nor did she think that it was possible.

"I can't say I relate, no," Theo admitted, setting his book on the arm of his chair. "I'd like to think that there's not anyone who would have the guts to stalk me, let alone send inanimate objects after me though."

"Are you saying I'm not intimidating?" Pansy asked, an eyebrow slightly raised as she looked him up and down. She definitely considered herself to be more intimidating than he was anyway. He seemed to be able to make friends whereas the only girl that didn't flee from her presence was Millicent. She couldn't stand Millicent though, which was a shame all things considered. There was Daphne as well, she supposed. For some reason, she seemed to always discount Daphne and she wondered if that was because while Daphne was her best friend, she didn’t count her as a friend in her own right.

"I'm going to choose not to answer that question." Theo hummed as he stood up, tucking his book under his arm. "Give me that card and I'll see if I can figure out what is up with it later?"

Pansy paused for a moment. On the one hand, she wanted answers, to know if her suspicions were true, but on the other hand, she didn't really want to let the card out of her sights either. She did hand it over to him in the end though. A small sigh escaped her as she watched him leave the common room without another word.

* * *

"What are you doing on Thursday night?" Theo asked as he sat on the bench across the table from Pansy.

"Not going on a date with you," Pansy said without missing a beat as she stirred the cream into her soup.

Theo let out a rather short, harsh laugh. "As if. No, I'm not asking you out, Parkinson. I figured out your card. It's an invite to the Room of Requirement at seven on Thursday evening. I reckon you'll find out your answers if you go along."

Pansy couldn't help but frown at that. She wasn't sure that she could just go along to some unknown event when she didn't even know who was inviting her. She hadn't even been able to read the invite herself either so how did Theo know that the invite was for her? Something just didn’t add up.

She looked up at him, her eyebrow raised as she watched him for a moment and tried to figure out if there was something that he wasn’t telling her or if that was all in her head. She wouldn’t put it past herself to be paranoid, but oftentimes she knew that there was a reason for her paranoia. Some might even call that gut instinct.

“I might if I don’t have other plans by then.” She ended up saying. It was rare that she would actually commit to something anyway so she didn’t feel as though she was acting out of character as she turned her attention back to her soup. She couldn’t help but silently curse Theo for being hard to read. She knew that it technically wasn’t his fault but she couldn’t help but be a little annoyed with him anyway.

He stayed with her for a while but he was silent the whole time. Pansy usually preferred silence while she ate, so she knew that he was probably respecting her boundaries, but it still made her feel uncomfortable to know that he was just _there_. She wondered briefly if he considered them to be friends, but she decided not to ask. Some questions were better off going without being answered.

“Pans?” Theo asked just as Pansy set her spoon down. Slowly she looked up to see his brown eyes practically fixed on her. “Are you okay?”

Pansy blinked a couple of times as she tried to figure out what exactly had prompted that question. She hadn’t realised that she had given any impression that she was anything other than okay. She hadn’t tried to be anything other than her usual self anyway - and that person was usually annoyed about one thing or another.

“Yeah, why?” She asked slowly, a frown taking over her features as she looked him over. She really did hate that he was almost impossible to read, but she knew that in the long run, it wasn’t something that he could help.

“I dunno. You just…” He trailed off with a small shrug which only prompted Pansy to roll her eyes. She didn’t have the time or the energy to play games with people who couldn’t just be straight with her - but then she supposed that was probably why she didn’t have a lot of friends in the first place.

“I’m fine.” She told him as she stood up. “I’m also tired so I’m going to go curl up with a book if that’s okay with you.”

“Oh, um, yeah.” Theo nodded slightly. She could practically feel his eyes burning into the back of her head as she walked away, but she didn’t feel like she could particularly care about his pride or his feelings or whatever bullshit he wanted to spin on it. That was the problem with boys, at least in her opinion; their honour was always so easy to wound.

  
  


* * *

Pansy didn’t know why she was nervous as she waited for the clock in the tower to strike seven. She supposed it could have had something to do with the fact that she didn't know what exactly it was that she was waiting for.

When the clock finally rang seven, she made her way up to the Room of Requirement, the playing card held tightly between her palms as she practically willed them to stop sweating. She had no reason to be nervous. She was Pansy Freakin' Parkinson, after all, and nothing was meant to phase her.

The door swung open as she approached, which still made her jump despite her attempts to convince herself that she was tougher than old boots. She had expected to have to knock or give some sort of secret password, not to just be invited inside without any obstacles. Regardless, she hesitantly made her way inside to find a purple room which was furnished with purple and black cushions and chairs. 

Something told Pansy that the atmosphere was meant to be warm and inviting, but that was not the impression that she got from it at all. The distinct lack of other people was unsettling and it took a few moments of deep breaths before she could actually walk all the way inside.

Pansy couldn't help but flinch as the door slammed shut behind her, even though the sound was nothing more than a dull thud. She half expected for someone to jump out from behind one of the sofas and yell surprise and she sighed with relief when that didn't happen.

Slowly she let herself wander around the room, taking her time to admire the books on the shelves behind the sofas and humming to herself when she saw that a lot of them were in fact about food - namely cakes. Was this a cooking club? She hoped not. She had no interest in food, if she was completely honest, let alone in cooking it.

She froze when she heard some laughter coming from behind a door at the other side of the room that she hadn't even noticed until she heard people behind it. Her first thought was that they must be watching and laughing at her. Fortunately, she was used to constructing a steely front so she managed to hide how much that thought bothered her as the door opened.

In the doorway stood that ditzy blond Luna Lovegood, that nervous Longbottom boy, and to her surprise Daphne. A frown fixed itself in place on Pansy's lips and her hands moved to her hips.

"What's going on here?" She asked as the laughing stopped almost immediately as the trio came face to face with her.

"Pans!" Daphne exclaimed, her eyes wide as if she didn't expect Pansy to be here, which she honestly thought was ridiculous considering that Theo had told her that she had been invited there so they had to be expecting her, right? Unless Theo was playing a trick on her, in which case she was going to make sure he paid.

"Hi." She said, her voice flat as she looked between the three of them. She was seriously considering backing out of the RoR now and legging it back to the Slytherin common room. They were living in too dangerous a climate for there to be unknowns like this, at least in her opinion. She wasn't sure that she possessed the ability to trust a Ravenclaw or a Gryffindor either - which she supposed was ironic considering that it was practically the motto of the school at this point. She didn't say anything else but instead simply held up the playing card, hoping that it would at least clear up why she was there, even if this was still a joke at her expense.

"You?" Daphne's eyes were still wide as she took the card from Pansy and cast a glance at the others.

"Me, what?" Pansy asked slowly. Daphne was testing her patience, and that was even with her trying to ignore that the other two were present. She really didn't think that she could even attempt to deal with them just now.

"You're ace?" Pansy had no idea what Daphne meant by that and honestly, it felt as though the girl was making fun of her. The word was meant to be a positive one but for some reason, Pansy felt as though it had negative connotations.

"Ace?" She repeated, hoping that the girl would clear up what she meant by that. "Like the playing card?" She asked slowly as she looked down at the card in her palm. As time went on, she was only feeling more and more like she should get out of there.

"Uh." Daphne blinked a couple of times. "The playing card is a symbol of ours, yeah." She glanced at Luna who had flopped herself down on one of the sofas with a slice of cake that Pansy hadn't even seen her take in with her. "But. that's not… people can't be playing cards. Ace is short for asexual."

"Asexual? People can't be asexual either." She said flatly. That was a term that she had heard primarily in herbology. _Plants_ were asexual. She was surprised to see that Daphne was shaking her head as if Pansy were wrong as if everything they had learned so far was in fact wrong.

"Plants reproduce asexually but they - uh - that's something completely separate to this. People can be asexual. That just means that they - we - don't experience sexual attraction towards anyone." Daphne went on to explain.

Pansy couldn't help but stare at her as if she had another head, especially when she saw the Longbottom boy give Daphne's arm a squeeze. Since when were they even friends? That bothered her almost as much as her inability to understand what Daphne even meant when she said that she wasn't attracted to anyone. She'd seen her friend kissing Goyle after all.

"I know it's confusing, but that's okay. You've been raised in the same heteronormative society as all of us. We were just as confused before we discovered the term and now… Well, now we wouldn't go back." Daphne's tone was comforting but her words just lead to even more confusion on Pansy's part.

"I… I have to go." She said quietly as she backed up towards the door. She wasn't enjoying the fact that she had seemingly fallen down a rabbit hole where the school lunatic and her best friend were friends, let alone the way that said best friend was talking to her as if she was suddenly an expert on something that honestly sounded made up.

Pansy couldn't help but be relieved when she was able to leave the RoR without being followed. She managed to walk out as if she were totally calm but once outside she ended up collapsing against the wall. Her head was buzzing with a million questions, but the most prominent one was 'why did Pansy think she was ace?'

* * *

"Have fun?" Theo asked as Pansy finally made her way back to the common room. She'd taken a walk in the grounds after she'd managed to calm herself down and that had helped to straighten out her thoughts. She hadn't been able to read the card herself so it was obvious, to her at least, that it hadn't been intended for her.

"I think you were meant to be there." She said, her tone short as she dropped down onto the armchair across from him. That was at least what made the most sense to her. Theo had to be the intended recipient.

Theo raised an eyebrow as he looked up from her, closing the book that he had been reading. "It's not really my sort of club." He said flatly.

That response surprised Pansy. He had known what he was dropping her into then? "And you thought it was mine?" She had to ask. What made him think that she was ace or asexual or whatever it was that Daphne had suggested.

"In short? Yes." He nodded as he crossed his legs at his ankles. "Parkinson… I'm not saying this to be mean or anything like that. I just reckon you could at least benefit from their community."

A frown wrinkled Pansy's glabella as she tried to figure out what on earth he could even mean by that. He looked completely serious anyway, which was thankfully enough to talk her down from going off on one at him. Somehow she doubted that doing that when he supposedly just wanted to help wouldn't exactly go down well.

"Daphne explained everything to you, right?" He continued, his voice quiet as he shifted his position so that he was closer to her. He didn't wait for her to answer him though. His eyes were fixed on her face in a way that made Pansy feel wholly uncomfortable, though she hadn't exactly felt comfortable since she had entered the Room of Requirement. "She explained what asexuality is?"

"Yeah, kinda." She said quietly as she tried to figure out what exactly this all had to do with her. "You think I am?" She asked slowly as her eyes scanned his face. She supposed it was true that she hadn't ever really had any sort of attraction to anyone before, but she didn't think that was because she was anything in particular, except maybe bitter. It was no secret that she often felt that others were beneath her.

"It's something that I think you should learn about," Theo told her with a gentle smile that she was sure did the opposite of what he wanted it to.

She wrapped her arms around herself tightly as she thought that over. It would mean having another conversation with Daphne, which she reckoned was something that she could do if the other two weren't also there.

Theo reached out and gave her knee a small squeeze after a few moments. Pansy realised that he had probably expected her to say something, but she didn't know what, so she had just sat there in silence, letting her brain pick through everything that had happened that day. His touch had jolted her back to the present, where she wasn't all too sure that she wanted to be.

"I'm going to bed." She said quietly, hoping that she would be able to at least attempt to sleep off some of this unpleasantness. She felt sick and she really didn't know how she was going to manage to understand any of this.

* * *

It was late, very late, by the time that Daphne crawled into the bed next to hers. The upside, at least as far as Pansy was concerned, was that Millicent was snoring her head off by this time and therefore wouldn't be able to eavesdrop on the conversation that Pansy knew she couldn't put off any longer. Tracey wasn't in her bed yet, so unless she had crawled into bed with someone else, there was the chance that she might walk in, but Pansy didn't think that this could wait until morning.

"Daff?" She whispered as she pulled the curtain surrounding her bed back just a little so that she could at least attempt to catch her best friend's attention. "Daffy?" 

"Mm?" Daphne sounded as though she were already half-asleep but Pansy being, well, Pansy didn't feel any guilt about keeping her up.

"I'm sorry for running out." Pansy began with, even though she didn't feel as if that were something that she should have to apologise for. She had been pretty much ambushed after all. "I… I talked to Theo about your club and he says that it's something that I should at least consider and I…" She trailed off as she tried to get the thoughts that were swirling around in her head to form sentences that she could actually use. "I… I guess I need some more information. I… How did you know that you were ace?"

Daphne's curtain tweaked open just enough so that the two girls could now see each other. "In a way, I've always known." She gave a yawn and rubbed her hands over her face. "I thought I was broken before I met Luna. I thought there was something seriously wrong with me this last year when Trace and Millie have both been off snogging boys senseless. I tried it once and I almost vomited on poor Greg." She laughed lightly. "And then Tracey said she'd actually shagged someone and the very idea of that…" Daphne visibly shuddered. "I couldn't. I thought I was maybe gay? But I don't want to kiss a girl either. I don't want to kiss or shag or even be touched by anyone."

Pansy listened, giving a small nod here and there as she took it all in. She could relate on the whole not wanting to kiss anyone front. She'd never been kissed and had never even thought about it that much if she was being completely honest. Because of who she was and the lifestyle that she leads - keeping everyone at arm's length - it had never caused her problems either.. She was always very careful about who she formed an attachment to. She knew that if she got attached to someone that her family didn't deem acceptable then they would be ripped from her, so it was better that she just not let that attachment form in the first place. She knew that it wasn't exactly the healthiest way to live her life, but it was _her_ life.

"I hope that makes sense," Daphne said quietly, her voice a little smaller now and Pansy realised that was probably because she hadn't said anything in a while.

"Yeah, kinda." She gave another nod before she rolled onto her back so that she could look up at the canopy that hung over her bed. Her head felt as if it might explode from all of the information that she had been fed today and the possibility that she might be ace herself weighed down on her chest in a way that she couldn't even explain. How was she meant to do her duty to her family and her future husband's family if she was asexual?

She gave a sigh before she closed her eyes. That wasn't something that she had to worry about tonight so she was going to attempt to drown the thought out while she focused on something that did need her attention - the fact that Daphne hadn't felt that she could talk to Pansy despite knowing that she wasn't attracted to anyone. It hurt that Daphne didn't think that she could trust Pansy, especially when she had clearly trusted Loony Lovegood and the Longbottom boy.

She fell asleep with the thoughts of how she must be a poor show of a friend swirling around in her head, but that was at least better than attempting to sleep while stressing about a future that was still at least two years off.

* * *

"Pans?"

Pansy looked up from where she had been sat in the library attempting to finish off her herbology essay to see that her best friend was stood over her. Daphne looked a little troubled, but Pansy figured that made sense considering the last conversation that they had had. "Hello." She said, trying to keep her voice from sounding completely flat, but by this point, she was used to keeping most emotions away.

"Can I sit?" Daphne asked after a moment or two, during which neither of them had moved or even really looked at the other. Pansy was still hurt - and generally confused, but she wanted to at least be open to whatever Daphne had to say. She didn't want to push her away, in case that was the issue in the first place.

Pansy nodded to the chair next to her. "Sure." She said quietly as she shuffled her notes and closed her book. She didn't know what she was meant to say to the girl to make her feel like she could talk to her again, not without knowing what she said to make her stop speaking to her, to begin with.

"Did I scare you?" Daphne led with, which only made Pansy frown. How could Daphne have scared her? That didn't make any sense to her.

"No, I just… I'm processing." She told her as she turned to face Daphne properly. That was the truth anyway. She was trying to process everything and she didn't exactly have the time to do that when she still had homework due to different classes and she had to make school her priority. If her grades started to slip at all then it was likely that her parents would you'll her from school and deem it pointless for her to attend.

Daphne gave the smallest of mods and folded her hands on her lap. "I hope you don't think that we were trying to force a label on you last night. The cards Luna had made… they are meant to appear to people who _may be_ like us but only you can choose your own identity. We just… we can give you the tools to understand identity better if that makes sense."

It was Pansy's turn to nod. That did sort of make sense, but whether she could fully comprehend what all of that meant to her _personally_ was another thing. She did appreciate Daphne trying to help her to understand though so she managed to give her a smile. "Thanks, Daff." Gratitude wasn't something that Pansy was great at showing but she was determined to try, especially when the girl had pointed out that this wasn't something that she generally liked to talk about.

"We meet every Thursday so if you want to come to meet with everyone again, you can. Or if you'd rather just talk to me, that's cool too."

Pansy swallowed thickly but gave another nod. She wasn't sure that she was anywhere near ready to talk to either of the others about whether she may or may not identify as asexual. Talking to Daphne, letting the other girl into the world that she had carefully sealed off from everyone else, even if she would only be able to let Daphne's visits be short, to begin with.

It was sort of nice to know that she wasn't completely alone in being confused about who or what she was, even if that was something that she definitely would never be admitted out loud. It helped her to feel more human, not that she had even realised that she felt anything less than human before. It was a new concept of self, one that both terrified and excited her at the same time. A whole new world lay before her, one in which people weren't forced to choose between straight or gay, and Pansy would be lying if she said that she wasn't excited to explore it.


End file.
